Nexal Announcements

Scheduled announcements plugin for Minecraft servers. Rotate tips, rules, store links, and Discord invites to players at configurable intervals through chat, titles, actionbar, and boss bars. Free forever, by Nexal Studios.

Features

Multiple Announcement Channels: Each announcement can send via chat, title/subtitle, actionbar, bossbar, or any combination.
Announcement Pools: Define independent pools (tips, rules, new-player) with their own intervals, running simultaneously.
Rich Message Format: Every announcement supports multi-line chat, titles, subtitles, action bar, sounds and fade timing.
BossBar Announcements: Show announcements as temporary boss bars with configurable color, style, and duration.
Sequential or Random Order: Each pool can cycle through announcements in order or pick randomly.
Per-World Restrictions: Restrict pools to specific worlds (e.g., mining tips only in the resource world).
Permission-Based Viewing: Show certain pools only to players with a specific permission node.
Player Toggle: Players can opt out with /announcements toggle (or just /announcements). Revoke nexalannouncements.toggle from a group to keep announcements on for it: without the permission, a player always receives them, whatever they toggled before.
Admin GUI: /announcements admin opens a menu with Pools, Export, Import and Reload. Pools lists every pool with its status: left-click opens the pool, right-click pauses or resumes it, and New Pool creates one from a name typed in chat.
Pool Screen: Each pool's screen lists its announcements with their full message: left-click previews to yourself, right-click broadcasts to all, shift+right-click deletes after a confirmation. New Announcement writes one line by line in chat (done to save, cancel to abort); titles, sounds and boss bars stay in messages.yml. Pool Settings edits the pool's running state, interval, order, worlds and permission, and Back returns to the pool.
PlaceholderAPI Support: Use any PlaceholderAPI placeholder in chat, title and action bar text, resolved for each player (boss bar text is shared, so it takes none).
Manual Broadcast & Pause: Trigger specific announcements on demand. Pause and resume pools; a paused pool stays paused after a restart.
Dual JSON / SQL Storage: Player preferences stored in data.json by default; migrate to MySQL/MariaDB any time with export/import.
Hot-Reload: Edit config.yml or messages.yml and they reload automatically. Pools pick up the new settings; paused pools stay paused and rotations keep their place.
Full Message Customization: Every plugin message (toggle confirmations, admin feedback, errors) is customizable in messages.yml with sounds and colors.

Technologies

Paper API 1.20.1+: Minecraft server API
Utilizer: Configuration, messages, items, tasks
ACF: Command framework
nexal-core: SQL persistence (MariaDB/MySQL)
PlaceholderAPI: Placeholder integration (optional)

Commands

Player Commands

Command	Description	Permission
`/announcements`	Toggle announcements (players); help menu for admins and the console	`nexalannouncements.toggle`
`/announcements help [page]`	Show help menu	None
`/announcements toggle`	Toggle receiving announcements	`nexalannouncements.toggle`

Admin Commands

Command	Description	Permission
`/announcements admin list`	List all pools	`nexalannouncements.list`
`/announcements admin`	Open the admin menu (console: admin help)	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin help [page]`	Show the admin commands	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin reload`	Reload configuration	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin broadcast \<pool> [index]`	Broadcast the next announcement, or the one at `index` (1 = first)	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin preview \<pool> \<index>`	Preview announcement privately	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin pause \<pool>`	Pause a pool	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin resume \<pool>`	Resume a paused pool	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin export`	Export player data to JSON	`nexalannouncements.admin`
`/announcements admin import`	Import player data from JSON	`nexalannouncements.admin`

Aliases: /announce, /ann

Permissions

Permission	Description	Default
`nexalannouncements.*`	All permissions	op
`nexalannouncements.toggle`	Toggle announcements on/off. Without it, announcements are always on	true
`nexalannouncements.receive`	Receive announcements	true
`nexalannouncements.list`	List all pools	op
`nexalannouncements.admin`	All admin commands	op
`nexalannouncements.newplayer`	Receive the default `new-player` pool	true

The default new-player pool uses permission: nexalannouncements.newplayer. Everyone has it out of the box; negate it for your ranked groups so the tips reach new players only.

Placeholders

Requires PlaceholderAPI.

Placeholder	Description
`%nexalannouncements_enabled%`	Whether player has announcements enabled
`%nexalannouncements_pool_count%`	Total number of configured pools
`%nexalannouncements_active_pools%`	Number of non-paused pools
`%nexalannouncements_next_\<pool>%`	The pool's interval, e.g. `300s` (not a countdown); `paused` or `unknown`
`%nexalannouncements_pool_paused_\<pool>%`	Whether a pool is paused (`enabled: false`)
`%nexalannouncements_pool_size_\<pool>%`	Number of announcements in a pool

Configuration

config.yml

# Storage type: "json" or "sql"
storage:
  type: json
  sql:
    host: localhost
    port: 3306
    database: minecraft
    username: root
    password: ""

# Announcement pools
pools:
  tips:
    enabled: true
    interval: 300        # seconds between announcements
    order: sequential    # sequential or random
    worlds: []           # empty = all worlds
    permission: ""       # empty = all players
    announcements:
      - announcement-tip-1
      - announcement-tip-2

  rules:
    enabled: true
    interval: 900
    order: sequential
    worlds: []
    permission: ""
    announcements:
      - announcement-rule-1
      - announcement-rule-2

  new-player:
    enabled: true
    interval: 180
    order: random
    worlds: []
    permission: "nexalannouncements.newplayer"
    announcements:
      - announcement-newplayer-1

messages.yml: Chat Announcement

announcement-tip-1:
  message:
    - ""
    - "  <gradient:#FF69B4:#FF85C8>\<bold>💡 TIP\</bold>\</gradient>"
    - ""
    - "  \<gray>Visit our store for exclusive items!\</gray>"
    - "  <gradient:#FF9DCE:#FFB8DC>store.example.com\</gradient>"
    - ""
  sound: "BLOCK_NOTE_BLOCK_PLING"

messages.yml: Title Announcement

announcement-event-1:
  message:
    - ""
    - "  <gradient:#FFC107:#FFCD38>\<bold>⚡ EVENT ACTIVE\</bold>\</gradient>"
    - ""
    - "  \<gray>Double XP event is live! Go grind!\</gray>"
    - ""
  title: "<gradient:#FFC107:#FFCD38>\<bold>DOUBLE XP!\</bold>\</gradient>"
  subtitle: "\<gray>Event ends in 1 hour\</gray>"
  sound: "ENTITY_PLAYER_LEVELUP"
  fade-in: 10
  stay: 60
  fade-out: 20

messages.yml: Action Bar Announcement

announcement-vote-1:
  actionbar: "<gradient:#FF9DCE:#FFB8DC>Vote with /vote for daily rewards!\</gradient>"
  sound: "BLOCK_NOTE_BLOCK_PLING"

messages.yml: BossBar Announcement

announcement-bossbar-1:
  bossbar:
    text: "<gradient:#FF69B4:#FF85C8>⚡ Join our Discord! discord.gg/example ⚡\</gradient>"
    color: PINK
    style: SOLID
    duration: 15

messages.yml: Combined Channels

announcement-sale-1:
  message:
    - ""
    - "  <gradient:#FF69B4:#FF85C8>\<bold>🛒 STORE SALE\</bold>\</gradient>"
    - "  \<gray>50% off all ranks this weekend!\</gray>"
    - ""
  bossbar:
    text: "<gradient:#FF69B4:#FF85C8>🛒 50% OFF ALL RANKS: store.example.com\</gradient>"
    color: PINK
    style: SOLID
    duration: 20
  sound: "ENTITY_EXPERIENCE_ORB_PICKUP"

Editing in-game

Everything under pools can be edited from /announcements admin without touching YAML. Changes are written to config.yml (new announcements to messages.yml, under keys like announcement-\<pool>-1) and apply immediately. Reloading, from the menu, the command or by editing a file, keeps paused pools paused and each rotation at its place.

A pool is either running or paused, and that is its enabled setting in config.yml. Pausing it with /announcements admin pause, on the Pools screen or with the Running toggle in Pool Settings all save enabled: false, so a paused pool stays paused after a restart until it is resumed.

Intervals below 5 seconds are raised to 5, with a warning in the console.

Storage Migration (JSON → SQL)

Run /announcements admin export (saves to plugins/NexalAnnouncements/export/)
Change storage.type: sql in config.yml and set SQL credentials
Restart the server (storage is chosen at startup; /announcements admin reload does not switch it)
Run /announcements admin import

Database Schema

When using SQL storage, the plugin creates:

`announcements_preferences`

Column	Type	Key	Description
`id`	VARCHAR(36)	PK	Player UUID
`player_name`	VARCHAR(16)		Last known player name
`announcements_enabled`	TINYINT		1 = enabled, 0 = disabled
`created_at`	BIGINT		First seen timestamp
`updated_at`	BIGINT		Last updated timestamp

Installation

Download the latest NexalAnnouncements jar
Place in your /plugins folder
Start/restart server
Edit plugins/NexalAnnouncements/config.yml to configure your pools
Edit plugins/NexalAnnouncements/messages.yml to write your announcements
Run /announcements admin reload or restart to apply changes

Features​

Technologies​

Commands​

Player Commands​

Admin Commands​

Permissions​

Placeholders​

Configuration​

config.yml​

messages.yml: Chat Announcement​

messages.yml: Title Announcement​

messages.yml: Action Bar Announcement​

messages.yml: BossBar Announcement​

messages.yml: Combined Channels​

Editing in-game​

Storage Migration (JSON → SQL)​

Database Schema​

announcements_preferences​

Installation​